THE MIRACULOUS ENERGY OF FAITH

"FAITH... must be enforced by REASON... When faith becomes blind it dies."
-Mahatma Gandhi

What we believe becomes reality. It has been said that faith can move mountains. The highest mountains are our negative thoughts, feelings and ideas, which block our capacity to rise beyond our limits. 

Faith is the energy of understanding that enables us to realize anything is possible even if it is not visible in front of our eyes.

The success that comes from faith is closely linked with 'letting go'. It is only when we let go of what we are used to, or what we have learnt to depend on, that new perceptions and new possibilities will present themselves to us.

All that is needed are a few basic facts and then we can take action. When we drive a car, do we insist on knowing how the engine works in detail before driving it? Do we know the mechanical details of a lift before we use it? Most people are only aware of the basic functions and this is all they need to carry out the action. However, they do have the faith that the car has been correctly constructed to do its job safely and that by pressing a few buttons the lift will raise them to wherever it is they want to go. In the modern life-style, there is a tendency to over-think, to want to control and direct every outcome, but such a life lacks spontaneity and simplicity.

Although we do need a framework, it must be flexible enough to allow space for the unexpected, the unpredictable and the great surprise. Such a space is the window through which the light of innovation can enter. When life is over-planned, we become cemented in, unable to grow, or flow, into new horizons. Faith allows us to realize that optimum results can happen without always having to structure or plan. Such faith is the basis for new vision and allows us to reach beyond our limits; because we believe we are more than what meets the eye. Such faith is the inspirational energy of every pioneer in whatever field.

IF A CHILD CAN'T LEARN THE WAY WE TEACH, MAYBE WE SHOULD TEACH THE WAY THEY LEARN

From one of the best selling book of Napoleon Hill; Many people make the mistake of assuming that, because Henry Ford had but little "schooling," he is not a man of "education." Those who make this mistake do not know Henry Ford, nor do they understand the real meaning of the word "educate." That word is derived from the Latin word "educo," meaning to educe, to draw out, to DEVELOP FROM WITHIN.

An educated man is not, necessarily, one who has an abundance of general or specialized knowledge. An educated man is one who has so developed the faculties of his mind that he may acquire anything he wants, or its equivalent, without violating the rights of others. Henry Ford comes well within the meaning of this definition. Any man is educated who knows where to get knowledge when he needs it, and how to organize that knowledge into definite plans of action.

In ancient times, India had the Gurukula system of education in which everyone who wished to study went to a teacher's (Guru) house and requested to be taught. If accepted as a student by the guru, he would then stay at the guru's place and help in all activities at home. This not only created a strong tie between the teacher and the student, but also taught the student everything about running a house. The guru taught everything the child wanted to learn, from Sanskrit to the holy scriptures and from Mathematics to Metaphysics. The student stayed as long as he/she wished or until the guru felt that he had taught everything he could teach. All learning was closely linked to nature and to life, and not confined to memorizing some information.

The modern school system was brought to India, including the English language, Originally by Lord Thomas Babington Macaulay in the 1830's. The curriculum was confined to "modern" subjects such as science and mathematics, and subjects like metaphysics and philosophy were considered unnecessary. Teaching was confined to classroom and the link with nature was broken, as also the close relationship between teacher and the student. 

                            

Now the question arise is that "How to acquire knowledge that really matters?" Well to a large extent your major purpose in life, the goal towards which you are working, will help determine what knowledge you need. Knowledge has no value except that which can be gained from its application toward some worthy end.

Successful men, in all calling, never stop acquiring specialized knowledge related to their major purpose, business, or profession. The way of success is the way of continuous pursuit of knowledge. Those who are not successful usually make the mistake of believing that knowledge acquiring period ends when one finishes school. The truth is that schooling does but little more than to put one in the way of learning how to acquire practical knowledge.

Thomas A. Edison had only three months of "schooling" during his entire life. He did not lack education, neither did he die poor.
Henry Ford had less than a sixth grade "schooling" but he has managed to do pretty well by himself, financially.

                       

As Greek philosopher and Scientist Aristotle said, "Educating the mind without educating the heart in no education at all. 

Thank you very much for your time.

Source: 
One of the best selling book of Napoleon Hill, www.gnu.org/education and Internet.

Significant links: 

1) Lies are very powerful things and one of the most powerful lies is that "Education can make you Successful"... Don't believe in the lies that other people tell you, just believe in yourself. Great insight from Mr. Dananjaya J Hettiarachchi
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqhUk7eXJLs

2) Sir Ken Robinson makes an entertaining and profoundly moving case for creating an education system that nurtures (rather than undermines) creativity: 

http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity?utm_campaign=social&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_content=talk&utm_term=education

3) An eye-pad for the blind and much more from this 15 year old: Angad Daryani at TEDxGateway 2013:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSVYvUHg4UA

4) 4th Grader Rocks Common Core Education By Asking School Board One Question:
http://www.collective-evolution.com/2015/04/21/4th-grader-rocks-common-core-education-by-asking-school-board-one-question/

5) Teaching Children How to Think Instead of What to Think:

http://themindunleashed.org/2015/01/teaching-children-think-instead-think.html

DISCOVER YOUR SLEEP

The thing which has been harmed the most in the development of human civilization is sleep. From the day man discovered artificial light, his sleep has become very troubled. And as more and more gadgets started falling into man’s hands, he started feeling that sleep is an unnecessary thing, too much time is wasted in it. The time when we are asleep is a complete waste. So the less sleep we can do with the better. It does not occur to people that sleep has any kind of contribution to the deeper processes of life. They think that the time spent sleeping is time gone to waste, so the less they sleep the better; the more quickly they reduce the amount of sleep, the better.

We have not even noticed that the cause behind all the illnesses, all the disorders that have entered man’s life is lack of sleep. The person who cannot sleep rightly cannot live rightly. Sleep is not a waste of time. The eight hours of sleep are not being wasted; rather, because of those eight hours, you are able to stay awake for sixteen hours. Otherwise you would not be able to stay awake all that time.

During those eight hours life-energy is accumulated, your life gets revitalized, the centers of your brain and heart calm down and your life functions from your navel center. For those eight hours of sleep you have again become one with nature and with existence. That is why you become revitalized.

Sleep needs to come back into man’s life. Really, there is no alternative, no other step, for the psychological health of humanity than that sleep should be made compulsory by law for the next one or two hundred years.

It is very important for a meditator to see to it that he sleeps properly and enough. And one more thing needs to be understood — right sleep will be different for everybody. It will not be equal because the body has needs which are different for everyone…according to age and to many other elements.

Perhaps you may not be aware that the latest research says that there cannot be one fixed time for everyone to wake up. It is always said that to wake up at five o’clock in the morning is good for everyone. This is absolutely wrong and unscientific. It is not good for everyone; it may be good for some people but it may be harmful for other people. Within twenty-four hours, for about three hours, the body temperature of each person goes down. And those three hours are the hours of deepest sleep. If the person is woken up during those three hours, his whole day will be spoiled and his whole energy will be disturbed.

Generally these three hours are between two to five in the morning. For most people these three hours are between two to five in the morning, but it is not the case with everyone. For some people their body temperature is low until six o’clock, for some it is low until seven. For some their temperature starts becoming normal at four in the morning. So if someone wakes up within these hours of low temperature, all twenty-four hours of his day will be spoiled and there will be harmful effects. Only when a person’s temperature starts rising to a normal level is it time for him to wake up.

Normally it is alright for everybody to wake up with the rising sun, because as the sun rises everyone’s temperature starts rising. But this is not a rule, there are some exceptions. For some people it may be necessary to sleep a little later than sunrise, because each individual’s body temperature rises at a different time, at a different pace. So each person should find out how many hours of sleep he needs and what is a healthy time for him to get up, and that is the rule for him…whatever the scriptures may say, whatever the gurus may say. There is no need to listen to them at all.

For right sleep, the deeper and the longer you are able to sleep, the better. But I am telling you to sleep, not to keep on lying on the bed! Lying down on your bed is not sleep!

To wake up when you feel it is healthy for you to wake up should be the rule for you. Usually it happens along with the sunrise but it is possible that this does not happen to you. There is no need to be afraid or worried or to think that you are a sinner and to be afraid of going to hell. Many people who get up early in the morning go to hell and many people who get up late are living in heaven. None of this has any relation whatsoever to being spiritual or unspiritual. But right sleep certainly does have a relationship with it.

So each person should discover what is the best arrangement for him. For three months each person should experiment with his work, with his sleep and with his diet, and should find out what are the most healthy, most peaceful and most blissful rules for him.

And everyone should make his own rules. No two persons are alike, so no common rule is ever applicable to anybody. Whenever someone tries to apply a common rule, it has a bad effect. Each person is an individual. Each person is unique and incomparable. Only he is like himself, there is no other person like him anywhere on the earth. So no rule can be a rule for him until he finds out what the rules for his own life-processes are.

Source: Osho, The Inner Journey

Follow the link: “The Science of Sleep” a video by Dr. Deepak Chopra

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Q9vSvd1Wa4

IS REALITY AN ILLUSION?

                        

Many of us have heard of the saying that "Life is an illusion." It is casually declared by many, and with such certainty one might add, as if to imply an understanding of reality. But what does the saying really mean? Is everything really an illusion or is it wishful thinking on the part of humans? Or is it because as T.S. Eliot says, "Humankind cannot bear very much reality," that we cling to our illusions even if they contradict the obvious?

To assert that everything is an illusion poses a problem. If everything is an illusion, why bother trying, improving or aspiring? Since none of what you experience, see or feel is real anyway, then who or what exists? The assumption may be that nothing exists. But isn't this in a way a diminishment of life?

Everything you and I see, touch, smell and hold is real -- is it not? Many schools of thought throughout time have pointed out that the world as we know it is an illusion. How could that be? Does that mean every experience I've had, or every person you have loved or cared about is an illusion? If not, then what do they mean by the statement?

Could it be that reality is not an illusion but that our version of reality is an illusion? In other words, none of us are perceiving reality for what it is but rather for what we wish it to be. Unfortunately, one simply cannot see things as they really are, cannot be aware of reality, with illusions acting as mediators.

There is a difference between what something is and what we think it is. Actually what we think is utterly inconsequential to what is. Illusions do not exist in the world (out there) but in here. The inner world is fertile ground for illusions to take root which then get projected into the world, thus influencing the perception of others about reality. These distortions, in the realm of reality, have no purpose other than for distraction and delusion.

                

So how can we know if illusions are creating reality? Well, we can't while we are under their spell and we can know only after the illusions no longer exist that we were living in illusion in the first place. When we begin to understand the difference between reality and that which we impose upon it through own thoughts, choices and beliefs, we will be made to realize that much of our despair, anger or pain was fueled by these mis-perceptions.

Most conflict, whether on a personal or collective level, stem from illusions. In our daily lives there is infinite opportunity to create them. We create them about our jobs, finances, relationships, friendships, love and life in general to shield us from that which we view as undesired truths. We do not want to live in reality but are comfortable living in illusion and we believe that somehow the gain far outweighs the effort needed to eliminate them.

As human beings we are conditioned (illusions) to hold onto culture, religion, tradition and politics even at the expense of our well being. From these elements our identity is shaped, and how this identity expresses itself is unique to each of us. Only time will tell if this identity is congruent with the essential self. In other words, illusions are learned and then passed on. Without knowing it, we live and express these distorted ideas, practices and patterns that influence our perceptions of reality and in turn create our reality. And then we point and say, "Look, that's reality." But upon further exploration, we realize that our perception was the illusion all along and not reality itself.

To summon the courage to question or challenge beliefs, assumptions and certainties ushers in a wiser and more mature perspective on reality. It takes experience to no longer mistake one for the other, and with time, life will reflect this distinction. Just recently we saw this distinction at play as Egypt and her people discarded their illusion of fear and powerlessness to reclaim their reality for freedom. People around the world are removing the veils at lightning speed -- illusions be gone -- its about time, don't you think?

THE “HOW” OF EATING

The first thing about food is that the state of our mind when we eat is much more important than what we eat. Food will affect you differently if you eat joyously, happily, or if you eat when you are filled with sadness and worry. If you are eating in a worried state, then even the best food will have a poisonous effect. And if you are eating with joy then it is possible that sometimes even poison may not be able to have its total effect on you. It is very possible. So what state of mind you eat in is important. 

We live in worry for twenty-four hours a day. It is a miracle how the food we eat gets digested, how existence manages it in spite of us! We have no wish to digest it. It is absolutely a miracle how it gets digested. And how we remain alive! This is also a miracle! Our state of mind should be graceful and blissful.

But in our houses the dining table is in the most gloomy state. The wife waits the whole day for her husband to come home to eat and all the emotional sickness she has gathered in twenty-four hours comes out just when the husband is eating. She does not know that she is doing the work of an enemy. She does not know that she is serving poison on her husband's plate.

The husband is also afraid and worried after the whole day's work - he somehow dumps the food into his stomach and leaves. He has no idea that the act which he has finished so quickly and has run away from should have been a prayerful one. It was not an act which should have been done in a hurry. It Should have been done in the same way as someone entering a temple, or as someone kneeling to pray, or as someone sitting to play his veena, or as somebody singing a song for the beloved.

The act is even more important: he is giving food to his body. It should be done in a state of tremendous blissfulness. It should be a loving and prayerful act.

The more happily and joyously and the more relaxed and without worry a person can take his meal, the more his food starts becoming the right food.

A violent diet does not only mean that a man eats non-vegetarian food. It is also a violent diet when a man eats with anger. Both of these things are violent. While eating in anger, in suffering, in worry, man is also eating violently. He does not realize at all that just as he is violent when eating the flesh of something else, so when his own flesh burns up inside due to anger and worry, violence is present there too. Then the food which he is eating cannot be non-violent.

The other part of right food is that you should eat in a very peaceful, a very joyful state. If you are not in such a state, then it is better to wait until you are and not to eat for a while. When the mind is absolutely ready, only then should one take his meals. For how long will the mind not be ready? If you are aware enough to wait then at the most it can remain hungry for only one day - but we have never bothered to listen to it.

We have made eating food a completely mechanical process. One has to put food into the body and then leave the dining table. It is no longer a psychological process, that is dangerous.

On the body level, the right food should be healthy, non-stimulating and non-violent; on the psychological level the mind should be in a blissful state, graceful and joyous; and on the level of the soul there should be a feeling of gratefulness, of thankfulness. These three things make food the right food.

We are eating food, we are drinking water, we are breathing - we should have a sense of gratefulness about all this. Towards the whole life, towards the whole world, towards the whole universe, towards the whole nature, towards the divine, there should be a feeling of gratefulness - " I have received one more day to live. Once more I have received food to eat. For one more day I am seeing the sun, seeing the flowers blossoming. I am again alive today."

This feeling, this feeling of gratitude, should be there in all aspects of life - and very particularly with diet. Only then can one's diet becomes the right diet.

Source: The Inner Journey - by Osho

INCREASE YOUR VALUE!!!

In the new economy you now find yourself in, you will be compensated not by how hard you work but by how much value you add to the world around you. Think about it. If you are currently being paid twenty dollars an hour, this money is being given to you not simply because you showed up at your desk for those sixty minutes but because you have added twenty dollars’ worth of perceived value during those sixty minutes. So, the monetary reward you receive is determined not by how long you work but by how much value you add.

This is why a brain surgeon is paid so much more than a McDonald’s employee. Is the brain surgeon a better person? Not necessarily. Is the brain surgeon smarter? Who knows? But one thing is certain: the brain surgeon has accumulated far more specialized knowledge and specific know – how than the McDonald’s employee.

There are far fewer people who can do what the brain surgeon does and, as a result, the brain surgeon is perceived as far more valuable to the marketplace. This is why the brain surgeon is paid over ten times more than the person who flips burgers. Money simply becomes a symbol for how much value each person has added to the world at large.

So to be paid more money in your work, you must add more value to the world. And the best way to begin adding value to the world is to start becoming a more valuable person. Acquire skills no one else has. Read books no one else is reading. Think thoughts no one else is thinking. Or, to put it another way, you cannot have all that you want if you remain the person you are. To get more from life, you need to be more in life.

Source: From one of the best-sellers, authored by Robin Sharma 

THE METABOLISM OF TIME.

One of Einstein’s brilliant contributions to modern physics was his intuition that linear time, along with everything happening in it, is superficial. Time seems to flow and move; clocks tick off their seconds, minutes and hours; aeons of history unfold and disappear. But ultimately, Einstein held, this vast activity is all relative, meaning that it has no absolute value.

Einstein displaced linear time with something much more fluid – time that can contract and expand, slow down or speed up. He often compared this to subjective time, for he noted that spending a minute sitting on a hot stove seems like an hour, while spending an hour with a beautiful girl seems like a minute. What he meant by this is that time depends on the situation of the observer. To borrow from Einstein’s example, if two men are sitting with the same beautiful girl, the time might drag for one, because the girl is his sister, while it flies for the other if he is in love with her. This means that each of us has personal control over sense of time.

Consider all the subjective qualities we attach to time. We say things like:

  v I don’t have time for that.

  v Time’s up.

  v Your time’s running out.

  v How the time flies.

  v Time hangs heavy.

  v I love you so much, time stands still.

These statements do not say anything about time measured by the clock. The clock doesn’t lie about how much linear time has elapsed “out there.” But subjective time, the kind that exists only “in here,” is a different matter. All the above statements reflect a state of self. Whenever you take an attitude toward time, you are really saying something about yourself. Time, in the subjective sense, is a mirror.

Let’s take a simple example, ask someone to make an omelet. A skillful cook can accomplish the task in about two minutes. Now alter the situation slightly by saying, “Make an omelet, but you only have two minutes to do it.” This will often make even the accomplished cook feel tense and harried. Time pressure causes stress hormones to be released into the body, which in turn elevates heartbeat. If the person struggles against this reaction, his situation only gets worse. Now his heart has to put up with time pressure and frustration. When heart patient are given demanding tasks under a deadline, a significant number grow so agitated that their heart muscles actually suffer ischemic or “silent” heart attacks (“silent” in this case means that damage is occurring but without any sensation of pain).

Some people are much more sensitive to time pressure than others. A nervous cook can get so rattled by the two-minute deadline that he drops the egg, burns himself, and can’t accomplish a task at which he excels when time is not a consideration. Another cook will blossom under the challenge and finish the omelet even quicker than before. One feels time pressure as a threat, the other as a challenge. One feels thrown out of control, the other feels impelled to test his sense of the control and improve upon it.

All of us, however, feel the pressure of a serious, threatening deadline over which we have no control—death itself. If you believe that you have been allotted certain span of time for your existence, the deadline of death will exert the same kind of stress as that felt by the nervous cook rushing to finish his omelet and botching the job. How much better not to feel any time pressure, to blossom fully despite the fact that death exists. The attitude that life is a blossoming, not a race, can be achieved. But to do that, you can’t believe that time is running out.

Source: From one of the best-sellers, authored by Dr. Deepak Chopra.

JEALOUSY IS BORN OUT OF COMPARISON

                       

“Jealousy is born out of comparison”. And we have been taught to compare, we have been conditioned to compare, always compare. Somebody else has a better house, somebody else has a more beautiful body, somebody else has more money, somebody else has a more charismatic personality. Compare, go on comparing yourself with everybody else you pass by, and great jealousy will be the outcome; it is the by-product of the conditioning for comparison.

Otherwise, if you drop comparing, jealousy disappears. Then you simply know you are you, and you are nobody else, and there is no need. It is good that you don’t compare yourself with trees, otherwise you will start feeling very jealous: why are you not green? It is better that you don’t compare with birds, with rivers, with mountains; otherwise you will suffer. You only compare with human beings, because you have been conditioned to compare only with human beings; you don’t compare with peacocks and with parrots. Otherwise, your jealousy would be more and more: you would be so burdened by jealousy that you would not be able to live at all. 

Comparison is a very foolosh attitude, because each person is unique and incomparable. Once this understanding settles in you, jealousy disappears. Each is unique and incomparable. You are just yourself: nobody has ever been like you, and nobody will ever be like you. And you need not be like anybody else, either. Everybody seems to be so happy - except yourself. You are continuously comparing. And the same is the case with the others, they are comparing too. Maybe they think the grass in your lawn is greener — it always looks greener from the distance... Everybody is jealous of everyone else. And out of jealousy we create such hell, and out of jealousy we become very mean. If everyone is in misery, it feels good; if everyone is losing; it feels good. If everyone is happy and succeding, it tastes very bitter.

But why does the idea of the other enter in your head in the first place? because you have not allowed your own juices to flow; you have not allowed your own blissfulness to grow, you have not allowed your own being to bloom. Hence you feel empty inside, and you look at everybody outside because only the outside can be seen.

Source: The Book of Wisdom.

INTERESTING FACTS

·        Scientists say the higher your I.Q. The more you  dream.

·        You use 200 muscles to take one step.

      ·        Your skeleton keeps renewing itself every ten years which means that every ten years you get a new skeleton.

      

     ·        The acid in your stomach is strong enough to dissolve zinc. It doesn't destroy the stomach because the stomach walls constantly renews itself.

      ·        The human brain cell can hold 5 times as much information as the      Encyclopedia Britannica.

      ·        It takes the food seven seconds to get from your mouth to your stomach.

      ·        Your body gives off enough heat in 30 minutes to bring half a gallon of water to a boil. 

      ·        The enamel in your teeth is the hardest substance in your body.

      ·        Your teeth start growing 6 months before you are born.

·        During your lifetime, you will produce enough saliva to fill two swimming pools.

      ·        If your saliva cannot dissolve or mix with food, you will not be able to taste that food (try tasting something after drying off your tongue)

·        Your eyes remain the same size after birth but your nose and ears never stop growing.

·        The colder the room you sleep, the higher the chances are that you would get a nightmare.

·        Humans are the only species that produce emotional tears

      ·        Your thumb is the same length of your nose.

 At this very moment I know well you are putting this last fact to the test...

...now remove your thumb from your nose and pass this on to the  friends you think might be interested in comparing their thumbs to their noses as well. :)

Source: Reader's Digest Books of Facts

PERSONALITY AND CHARACTER!

The word personality is very significant. It comes from a Greek word persona. Persona means “the mask.” In Greek drama the actors used masks, false faces. Those false faces were called personae. And from that, the word personality comes. It is beautiful.  It means you are acting through a false face, it is not you. You are hiding behind a false face because you cannot reveal your real face.

That does not mean that one should necessarily – or unnecessarily – go on revealing your real face everywhere. There is no need: in some places the persona is needed. But be clear that this is the persona; this is not you. Inside, you must know when you are acting and when you are real. You must not be deceived by your acting. You must not become identified by your acting. Sometimes faces are needed; otherwise it will be difficult to live in the society, very difficult. Faces are good in a way. They facilitate, they work like lubricants. And in big society with so many people, you need not reveal your reality everywhere.

Someone meets you in the morning, and you feel disturbed by it… You think “Why have I seen this man’s face this morning? His face may destroy my whole day.” But, outwardly, you smile and say “Good morning. How happy I am to see you!” Inwardly, you are not happy at all.

But this is ok as far as manners are concerned. It would not be good to say to the man “I am feeling very unhappy. You have destroyed my morning. Your face is dangerous. I am afraid that seeing you will ruin my whole day.” This would not be good. Unnecessarily – unnecessarily disturbing to the other man; there is no need.

But you must know what is a mask and what is real. You must be aware of what is going on within. That is your real being. And what is going on, on the face is just a social utility. If you can make a clear-cut distinction between you and your personality, then the personality becomes just like clothing…

Character isn't something you were born with and can't change, like your fingerprints. It's something you weren't born with and must take responsibility for forming.

- Jim Rohn

FOR LIFE